MommyCon DC 2016 Review

July 25, 2016

This was my first MommyCon, and I must say I had a BLAST! My husband didn’t want to come with me so I took his mother so I could have some Mother-in-law/Daughter-in-law bonding time. It was also a great way to show her all of the exciting things going on in the baby world that either wasn’t around when she was having kids or has changed since. Here are my take aways!

Location: The Convention was located in D.C this year. While I would have preferred something not in the city it was pretty easy to drive to from where I live out side of Baltimore. The Walter E Washington Convention Center was nice. The only down side was there were not as many food vendors in the convention center as I had hoped. While I was adventurous to journey to D.C. for the convention my Mother-in-law and I were not adventurous enough to journey outside the convention center to find food. So it was a good thing that I packed enough snacks for us to eat.

Layout: Layout was easy enough to figure out. I wish all of the vendors were in one area, but they had some across the hall from the big vendor area that we almost missed. (Good thing we made it over there too since one of my most favorite vendors was hiding over there.) The sessions were easy to find and the only thing that we got slightly turned around looking for was the gift bag station.

Staff: All of the staff we met were friendly. Some didn’t know the answers to our questions, but everyone we talked to made an effort to find out the answer.

Vendors: This was my second favorite part about MommyCon. There were so many vendors! It took us a couple of hours to go through the whole vendor section. Some of the vendors had really long lines and we had bypass them and try to get to see them at a different time. The vendor section layout was good no dead ends which meant that the flow of people was not interrupted.

Sessions: There were a lot of information sessions throughout the day but there were only a couple that I actually wanted to attend. I unfortunately missed the one I really wanted to go to called Moving Past Bed-Sharing the Big Transition, but the speaker was kind enough, on the Mommycon Facebook group, to ask if anyone wanted the information from the session. So hopefully I will get something out of it. My most favorite thing about the day was the Cloth Diapering 101 session presented by Jenn Labit of Cottonbabies. You could tell that Jenn was VERY passionate about the subject of cloth diapering and by the end of the session everyone knew why. It was amazing to learn how much money you can save cloth diapering and how much you can help the environment. The best part of all was at the end when my Mother-in-law, who helps run the Baby Mission at her church, got a chance to speak with Jenn to see if there was a way that she could get some cloth diapers for her Church’s Baby Mission. On the spot Jenn asked if we had a car because she would send us home with some. My Mother-in-law ended up walking away with 73 cloth diapers. Enough cloth diapers to diaper three kids for three years. Needless to say my Mother-in-law cried all the way home that day. The last session we made it to was Car Seat Safety with Mat York. This gentleman was so funny! He made me laugh during his session. I was glad I went because some of the parents had great questions regarding transitions from rear-facing to forward-facing, and transitioning from a booster.

Giveaway’s at the end: The giveaway’s at the end were crazy. There were so many people in a room that should have been bigger. You had to be present to win if your number was called, but half of the giveaway’s weren’t given away by number. While I understand they were trying to giveaway specific items, such as strollers and car seats, to those families that really needed it; having people guess a number between a certain number and then not calling on certain sections of the audience was not the way to go and was not fair. The giveaway’s at the end were my least favorite part of the day, and I love winning free stuff!

My takeaways: Join the Mommycon Facebook group before you go to Mommycon so if you have any questions you can get them answered. Also, sometimes vendors will get on their and do giveaways before the convention even starts. This year Mat York did some facebook live chats with Grovia cloth diapers and Sloomb before the convention started/and during, and was giving away some goodies to some lucky individuals who were apart of the chat. All in all I had a blast. I am still on my MommyCon high today and the event was Saturday. Next year I may even try to make it to some of the VIP sessions the day before. We shall see!

My Top 5 Favorite Vendors: Since there were so many vendors and I cannot list all of them or it would take forever I have listed my top 5 favorite vendors and their products. They are not in any specific order.

Wild Poppy Hand Wovens: Oh my goodness were these wraps and ring slings gorgeous! All hand-woven and you can tell that the owner Sarah Rawlings put so much love and attention into her work. You can find her here Wild Poppy Hand Wovens

Grovia Cloth Diapers: As I mentioned above Mat York did a Facebook live chat with the cloth diaper company Grovia before MommyCon.

They have this one diaper called Purrrrect it has unicorns, kittens, and rainbows on it. I loved it so much that I went to go check out their vendor booth and had to go back a couple of times since they were so busy. For my daughters needs, and since I am new to the cloth diapering world, I ended up getting 2 of their hybrid shell starter sets in Chiffon and Haze. I am very excited to start cloth diapering and to see how much money it will save my family. www.grovia.com

Meadowlark Diaper Co.: This was my most favorite vendor. The cloth diapers were so cute, and she had leggings for the mom’s to match the diapers! If I had not just purchased my Grovia diapers I would have been all over her leggings and diapers. Her diapers have been added to my daughter’s birthday wish list, and the leggings to my birthday wish list. Meadowlark Diaper Co.

Ardo: Now this company is on the bigger side but as an exclusive pumping mama I had heard about their Calypso breast pump, but had never seen it in person. The ladies at the booth were so nice and informative about their product and I fell in love with this breast pump. It is a closed system pump that is the quietest pump I have heard. Even my quietest pump that I own makes a little sound and vibrates so you can tell its being used. I could not hear the Calypso at all and I had the sucker all the way up to my ear. There are also these attachments to the flanges that are like pillows for your boobs! HEAVEN. I have not seen that this breast pump is covered by insurance, but make sure you check with your Insurance company first. For me it’s not covered so I am going to start saving my nickles, dimes, and pennies now so that when baby number two rolls around I can splurge and get myself this breast pump, and maybe by that time it will be covered by my insurance. (Crosses fingers) Ardo

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So bummed we didn’t ‘internet know’ each other last year. I went to MommyCon DC and loved it. And if you checked your stroller, you met my son. I went to totally different sessions than you, though.
I LOVE that story about Jen Labitt. She seems so wonderful every time I’ve heard her speak.
XOXO